Teething Problems
Mark Fletcher
Copyright © 2006 Mark Fletcher
Smashwords Edition 1.0 September 2009.
Published by Smashwords.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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For Jason who got up and went to work one day.
Chapter One
I’ve got to tell someone. To make it real, you know. I have to. Sorry, I can’t stop moving, it helps me, breathe. The phone call … it’s the closest thing to a beginning to all this.
Two nights ago.
Fuck I hate roller coasters.
I rang her as soon as it happened.
I know now, …
*****
Chapter Two
It’s my side of the conversation. Okay? You’ll get the rest. Here’s how it went.
“How dare you.”
“Of course I’m angry, he was at my front door.”
“Because you told me he was coming. You set this up remember.”
“He introduced himself.”
Through the door, before I opened it, he called out.”
“I heard him say my name.”
“No, I didn’t look through the peephole first.”
“It distorts things.”
“Their heads look all fat. Especially if they peer in.”
“This isn’t about peepholes.”
“Lies.”
“You said he was dead. Or, gone to be with God, I think was your favorite term. That God needed an angel so he took Dad.”
“We celebrated his anniversary, Mother, for years - or cried over it at least. We went to the grave a few times too. How do you account for that?”
“Great, so I get a refund on the tears?”
“Well don’t you be smart either.”
“Whether he was always alive or not, it doesn’t matter. In my head, my father was dead. There wasn’t a day I didn’t think about him.”
“Of course, I was pleased. A kid finds out that his father is not really dead and that he’s been away for some yet to be revealed secret reason. I couldn’t wait to see him no matter how screwy the story sounded …”
“He wasn’t the guy in the photos. You lied to me.”
“You told me he was alive and I believed you. I’ve always believed you. And now, now that I know, I’m just another fucked up bastard.”
“I’ll be angry if I want to be.”
“That put on voice isn’t going to help you.”
“You are so.”
“I’m not a kid reading one of your Walter the Wombat books.”
“I’m not putting them down.”
“This has as much to do with Walter as it has to do with you and me.”
“Walter is not innocent.”
“He’s as real as you and me, Mother.”
“To millions. You write wonderful stories. Pity you didn’t keep some of Walter’s wisdom for yourself. ”
“No, I don’t resent him.”
“I don’t resent you.”
“I’m proud of your success.”
”Fuck Walter!”
“You want to know the sad thing? No one would believe me if I told them what you did.”
“Well, tell me about it then.”
“Because I know, Mother.”
“I know the truth.”
“He was fucking standing at my door, practically beating it down.”
“No, I didn’t let him in.”
“Because I didn’t want to.”
“I was in shock …once I realized … At first I thought it was someone else and that HE was still on his way. But then he told me. He introduced himself as my father. He knew me.”
“He looked nothing like Dad, the man in the photo with me.”
“So, which one is it, Mother? The man at the door or the man in the photo?”
“Don’t! I know they’re not the same man.”
“I’m not blind.”
“Stop this!”
“The door or the photo, Mother?”
“Door or photo?”
“So, who is the man in the photo?”
“I see.”
“Well, at least in my fantasy world I’m not a bastard.”
“He didn’t know, did he?”
“God, you’re a piece of work.”
“My world Mother, because of a quick fuck you had one night when some navy was in town. You fucked your brains out and now you’ve fucked my life.”
“You’d been married less than a year for god’s sake.”
“So I’m an accident then?”
“I’ll feel what I like!”
“No, you didn’t think. And with you such a paragon of righteousness now.”
“You’re lucky I look more like you than him.”
“Forgive? No.”
“No!”
“Well, don’t ask.”
“I’m not going to continue this discussion.”
“Goodbye, Mother. No, wait, did you love him?”
“You know who I mean. Did you love him?”
“Just answer the question.”
“I love my dad.”
After she’d kissed me and turned off the light and shut the door, I’d crawl out of bed and look out the window.
Sometimes I’d just say good night. Other times I’d talk about what I did during the day. Other times I’d tell my secrets.
It was the best part of the day. Him and me. Perfect.
*****
Chapter Three
Like I said, it’s my side of the conversation. Him turning up at my door is how I found out. I knew my father was coming but I didn’t know it was him.
No, you don’t need me to tell you her words.
I’m not hiding anything. I know that with time things can get colored even though it’s only been two days. You have to take it into account is all I’m saying.
She is my mother. It was always just the two of us. The bond, was, you know, close. Not unhealthy. But close. I trusted her!
Yeah, poor me. Fuck.
I never questioned her recollections of our time as a family before …
She created him - warm and lush stories. By the time I was six or seven he was a superhero. Perfect in every way.
If she was here you’d believe her too. What’s not to believe? Worldwide bestselling author, good looking, witty, politically active, well dressed but not overdone, a widow who’s had it tough and made good and a mother forever caring about her only child. Perfect.
People like her more than their own Mother. I’ve heard them say as much!
And thanks to her Walter the Wombat books, almost everyone on the planet must know her. She’s a star. I’ll choke if another person asks me how she does it. What do I know? Okay, what do I know?
Ever since she got famous, I’ve been the son of the wombat woman. I know that I don’t look that great, not the ‘part’ for her. I’m not sidekick material.
From when I can remember I was told he died. It was a veil of sadness over us people would say.
Mother and I often talked about him until, one day, the subject was forbidden. “Time to move on” she said. But that didn’t stop me thinking about him.
Oh, secret memories … they’re the best. Much of my dreaming was about what might have been if he were alive.
A favorite was the time he won an award for a life saving discovery he had been working on for years. I was six. There was a big ceremony with hundreds of important people in the city. Lots of people made speeches about how vital his work is and how much of a nice guy he is.
Politicians called him a hero. A lady told the story of how he saved her life. She hugged Dad when she finished. They both cried.
Next, he was presented with a gold medal and a huge framed certificate. Everyone was on their feet and clapping and cheering for ages. Mother and I were on our feet too in our front row position. Then the crowd hushed as he walked to the podium to speak and then when he got there and had put his speech papers out and looked up they clapped again.
In his speech he talked about his work and how it was a team effort and that the award was to be shared with everyone on the team. He talked about the importance of the work and his desire to help people. He thanked Mother for her support and blew her a kiss. And then he thanked me for his inspiration. He said I made the hard work worthwhile. He told them how I had the illness his discovery treated. He saved my life.
He called me up to the podium and put the medal around my neck. He picked me up. “This is my son,” he said into the microphone. I gave him the biggest hug.
My eyes were blinded by the camera flashes going off and the TV lights. The hero dad and his son. We were swamped by a crowd offering congratulations. Never once did he let me out of his arms.
The next day, back home, we went out for breakfast as a treat and there we were on the front page of the newspapers. The headline was HERO DAD! People came up to us in the café and congratulated him. There was usually at least one person who told of how they knew someone who’s life he had saved. That’s when I felt the proudest.
As I got older he didn’t hold me at the podium but he did hug me to his side. We always made the newspapers the next day. The feeling was the same no matter how old I was. It was a great way to put myself to sleep.
He was the best dad, even if it was my secret. But I’m sure Mother knew. Kids are obvious about such things I think.
I wanted the guy coming to my door to be him, I expected it to be him.
All day I was trying to keep my mind off it by studying. I had a uni paper due so I plunged into that to try and distract myself. But it wasn’t enough so I decided to spring clean the apartment in my study breaks, all the while drenching the place in thumping music and for good measure a sports game on television. But I couldn’t stop wondering … What would he be like? Would he like me? What things would we do together? What would he be famous for? What was the big secret about where he had been?
In between the cleaning and study and dancing to the music I changed clothes four or five times.
My heart skipped a beat when I heard a knock at the door. I dropped the textbook I was reading. Then there was another knock.
I froze at the door. I heard him call out my name
“Yeah, coming.”
He looked nothing like I expected. Taller. He had a different nose and eyes to the man in the framed photo I had in my bedroom. He was younger, too, probably around forty. Dark hair. Cut short. Well groomed. A businessman look.
I compared quickly. Height, nose, eyes. I knew he was not my father. “Son,” he said.
“This isn’t funny.”
“I can explain,” The voice, no, the accent wasn’t what I expected. It sounded foreign. Mother never said my dad was from overseas.
“I don’t know who you are.” My voice was wavering. “Let me in and we can talk.” It was a reasonable request. He seemed friendly enough. He was smiling. And I noticed he had something, a present probably, tucked under his arm and a bunch of flowers in his hand.
“I, er, didn’t know what to bring so I brought candy and flowers. Here.” He reached forward and I stepped back. “No, ” I said firmly.
“I don’t know who you are. You’re not the man in the photo. You’re not the man in the photo.” I cut him off each time he tried to speak.
He was happy to see me, grinning from ear to ear. He couldn’t stand still. I was the prize he’d come to collect. It’s another reason I was upset.
“You’re not …” There was no point continuing.
I didn’t want to make this discovery.
I didn’t see it at the time but when I replay it I know he was upset. His tears were sad like mine. Victims.
After a while he said “You’re right. It’s not me.” He looked away and then back as if he was going to speak again.
I shut the door. What, was I supposed to do?
I watched him through the peep hole. After a few minutes he said “Bye then.” He pushed a business card under the door and left.
W. Patrick Richardson, Director. Some Defense organisation in London. That explained the accent. On the back he’d written a phone number and “sorry”.
Things aren’t black and white anymore. My heart was pounding. I was sweating. My body was twitching. Fucking memories and dreams.
I’m going to be sick. Shit.
That’s when I grabbed the phone and called her.
He wasn’t my dad and she said my dad was coming.
*****
Chapter Four
It’s good to have a listener sometimes. Thanks for that.
So, I’m an accident. I AM.
That’s what they call unplanned kids, isn’t it? I’ve heard it used before at parties and places like that. Blah blah blah, and Freddy, he was an accident and then the story usually goes into how Freddy became an accident because of his parents screwing when they shouldn’t have or something like that. Yeah, I’m one of those. Sort of like collateral damage. No, we didn’t plan on killing the hundreds of civilians in the Red Cross hospital when we were bombing the baddies a hundred miles away. Collateral damage … hmmm … a crazy phrase that makes the innocent indispensable.
In this game, I’m the collateral damage and I’m guessing that my parents, my REAL parents and not my mother and the dad I had who I now find out was never really my dad, would have preferred not to have this collateral damage to deal with. But if that really were the case, I shouldn’t be here. Too much to think about.
An accident … hmmm … not your “sorry, I spilt the salt” type accident, no, nor your “I knew I shouldn’t have washed the red shirt with the whites” accident. No, this is bigger and better hidden.
Two people fucking is hardly an accident and that makes me no accident. They would know. You’d like to think that they would know that. I would. You would. The in and out dance of love or lust or being drunk, whatever it was … they should have known. They would have known if it was safe and the consequences of it not being safe. Even then. Even.
They knew what they were doing. Back then and a week ago. How fucked is that? Totally, if you ask me, totally fucked. Fucking accidents.
Maybe they’re getting back together and that’s why she wanted me to meet him? Well, that’s what I’m thinking at this point. I mean, there are other options but they make even less sense. It’s got to be something like that. Otherwise she wouldn’t care, not after all this time. If it was a quick fuck that counted for nothing years ago, then why are they in contact with each other now? That’s what I’d like to know. Maybe they’ve never been out of contact. Hang on; they can’t have been, because otherwise he would not have known where she lives.
Let’s see, we moved at least twice when I was a kid, as far as I can remember and she talked of a move not long after I was born too. So that would be three moves and they’re still in contact. Hmmm. That’s got to be it. They’re together and they’re either moving away together or he’s moving in with her or something like that and they wanted to connect with me, so we could be a happy little family.
The two love birds and their little accident, the happy family. Maybe I could hit him for university fees? It would take the pressure off my loan situation. Let’s think about this for a moment. Seventeen years of child support would come to, I don’t know, tens of thousands of dollars, I guess. That, plus something for university fees. Hmmm …
No, I’m not a money person. I won’t be turning this into a transaction. It does make you think, though. He wants something from me and that could have a price. He might consider offering some form of assistance, to make his entry into my life easier.
I hate the way I’m sounding.
Fuck them and their game.
Aarghh, why did this have to happen? I was happy with things the way they were. Life was going along just fine and now this. Shit.
Their behavior is juvenile! They’re too fucked up about it to be able to communicate normally, so they play a game and leave me to deal with it, like a kid would dump a problem in the lap of their parents. I bet she’s looking for my blessing that what she did was okay and that it would be fine for them to be together. It’s how a kid would react, you know, by bringing things to a parent for their blessing. I left home to get away from these sorts of games.
I left home for other reasons, too. Independence mainly though. Got a small apartment almost an hour from the town where my mother lives. It’s closer to university and my various jobs. I had the option of a dorm but the lure of independence was too great. I needed to do it, I know that. To learn how it goes, for myself. At least Mother was good like that, taking care of me: clothes and food and stuff. But I always wanted to do it for myself and two years ago was the right time.
This place I found was ideal. It’s in a block of nine apartments in a small rural town fifteen minutes from university and like I said an hour from Mother. There are three apartments on the first floor and four on the top. Mine was on the top floor at the back. With the amount of snow we get in winter there was no way I would want to be sleeping on the first floor. Besides, being on the top floor gave me a bit of a view across the small town. I like views, especially in winter.
Anyway, the building is pretty basic but comfortable. The heating is good and they keep the property clean and everything working. Each apartment has big windows which makes cooling it in summer easy. It’s large for a place occupied by a student. There’s a living room cum kitchen, a bathroom cum laundry and a big bedroom.
I painted it before I moved in, the whole place that is. Red in the main room, blue in the bedroom and white in the bathroom. I furnished it with a truckload of character laden comfort from Goodwill. By the time I moved my clothes and things from home this place had the lived in feel I wanted. I planned to be studying for a few years yet so comfort was important.
I like it there. I’ve changed things over the last couple of years - more furniture, some art on the walls and a cool sound system.
The neighbors are good, they don’t mind the odd party.
It’s cheap and clean. It’s home.
Mother offered to help but I’m the independent type. “Independent” is my label. Stubborn is the label mother would use. She’s given up trying to talk me out of things. I think she only says that I’m stubborn to mask her own stubbornness. To back up her claim that I’m stubborn she always trots out the same story. Her New York story. It’s one of her bigger stories about me. She tells it too often. A dollar for every time I heard it would make me rich. And it grows with each telling.
My version is based on the facts. Her version would go five times longer, have considerably more drama and end with her in tears, as she recounts how her stubborn son made her life a misery once again and that all she wanted to do was to give me the experiences in life she had not been able to enjoy when she was my age. Poor mother.
I feel that I have to tell you that I love Mother. Not the expected obligation love of a son, not that. What I feel is real. It’s true, if that makes sense, yeah, true. I can’t explain it. It’s how I feel, that’s all. No matter what she does or how fucked she is about things, I love her. And you have to remember that, no matter what I tell you in the next while.
Even in the light of recent events. I do still love her.
God, all the qualifications. What is it with that? And what is it with even needing to tell you that I love my mother? Hmmm …
Yeah I know, get on with it.
It was in my last year of high school and her first year of success with Walter the Wombat. Her first book had been an unexpected runaway best seller and her second, Walter the Wombat Saves the Forest, was showing signs of overtaking the sales of the first. In the space of a year, she had become a major celebrity in our state and a minor yet growing celebrity nationally, with the promise of greater things to come once the Walter spin-offs kicked in, and she had plenty of those planned.
Walter was something she had been working on for at least five years. Writing and rewriting. It started with a short story published in the local paper which readers raved about so much so that she had to write a follow up. This was even more popular. It was after the fifth Walter short story almost a year later that someone at the newspaper suggested she write a book and mother being mother, she had the first draft finished within a month. Three years later she had a publisher and four years on her first book was out.
So the trip to New York was to put the Walter empire in place and farm her cuddly little creature for all it was worth. For the first time I could remember, we had a bit of money. Not lots, but enough for me to get some new clothes in advance of a new season and not from last season or charity places as we had done in some years. She had new clothes too and we ate out a bit and she replaced some of the furniture we’d had since I was a kid. The big thing was central heating which worked.
Yeah, things had been tough for us for a while. But we made do. It was good in a way, those pre Walter years, simpler.
Anyway, New York. There was a TV interview, a New York Times interview, a magazine photo shoot and some meetings. Her publisher was flying her out for four days and offered to fly me as well. I said no. It was my finals in two weeks! I had study to do! Yes, I wanted to go to New York! Even though it was only a three hour flight away it was far enough removed from our small town to be exciting and alluring. I loved it the few times we drove the two hours to Chicago and I knew New York would be more exciting for me. So I wanted to go! The timing of this trip was bad, that’s all. Earlier in the year would have been fine. A few weeks later would have been better. But I had studying to get done and I know I wouldn’t have done it in New York. So I didn’t go.
She was all carrying on about the trip being a once in a lifetime opportunity since it would be our last vacation together because I’d be in college or university and then getting on with my life. She put a huge guilt trip on me. But I didn’t budge. God, it was only four days.
For the whole two weeks before the trip, she was hassling me and begging me to go. The inducements stacked up. Tickets to a game at the Garden, tickets to a show. Spending money. My own room in the hotel. I told her that no meant no, but that didn’t stop her. She worked out a schedule that gave me hours of study time in the hotel room while she did her thing. And the final push included heavy emotional blackmail that, if not for me, then I should do this for her, and that the two of us making this trip together would be the most wonderful present I could give her, ever.
Right from the first time I said no, I stuck with it and that pissed her off and, so she says, proves my stubbornness. I don’t think it proves anything, if you ask me.
She didn’t talk to me for a week after she got back, so I didn’t talk to her. When she gave in and spoke first it was to call me the most stubborn person she’d ever met.
That weekend at home showed me how much I wanted my own place. I enjoyed the quietness and the space. It was just what I wanted.
I did well in my finals, by the way.
It was my first taste of real independence … well, as independent as you can feel in your family home. Because we hadn’t had much money and because it was just the two of us, I hadn’t explored much independence prior to this weekend.
I liked it, the feeling, the space.
I liked being away from Mother and I liked doing my own thing.
But there’s nothing about the story that makes me stubborn. She is the stubborn one. She is!
Hmmm.
Okay I’ll admit it. Never to her though. It sounds stupid now, years later, but back then it made sense. I wanted to go to New York, that’s the truth. I desperately wanted to go. But I didn’t want to go with her. I knew that once we got there she’d want me to go to the interviews with her and that there would be every chance she’d drag me into it or refer to me somehow. Oh, she’ll tell you that she’d never do that but she did do it. For the whole previous year she was dragging me into her spotlight and I hated it. She had me sit with her for magazine photos and had them film both of us walking in the park for some TV story. Why couldn’t she just get on and enjoy the glory for herself? She didn’t have to involve me. Every photo made it harder for me to have my own identity. She didn’t understand.
It was bad enough where we lived, being constantly reminded that I was the son of a local celebrity, the best selling author. With every television appearance the shadow I was living under grew. I was shy and this attention was unbearable. The expectation on me was awful. Going to New York would have made it worse. I didn’t want to be a trophy any more. But I could never tell my mother that.
I’m not stubborn.
*****
Chapter Five
I know I’m avoiding the real issue. It’s hard to face.
She must have thought about this every day and how it would be when the secret came out. Surely she knew the secret would come out. Someone else must know. You’d think!
Well, this accident is not going to play happy families. Not me.
Because I don’t want to and because I don’t have to.
In some respects, I feel like I lost both my parents when he came around the other night. Because of their lack of respect for me, the way they told me. I don’t know what I’m saying … except that I feel very lost right now. Very very lost.
Don’t have any pity on me. No, I’m okay. Really, I am. All right, I’m pissed off. But otherwise okay.
Pissed off and angry. How’s that? And confused, I guess … because I don’t understand the secrecy. Well, maybe I do, but then again I don’t. God, I’m confused about all this. If only she had told me the truth from the start. If only …
I always knew something was odd. Can’t explain that, though. Just did.
When I was a kid, ten or eleven, I thought I was an alien. I did! Really! Okay, so it’s not an original thought for a kid, but I was certain. I was looking for signs everywhere and I was sure that I saw them. Things that didn’t make sense I put down to not being from here.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t shake the square peg in a round hole type feeling. It eventually passed, but it took a long while. I guess that the family photos of the three of us, the few we had, were enough to prove my real earthly connection.
I liked the idea of being an alien while it lasted, though. Made the world look more interesting.
Toward the end of the not belonging feeling I decided my mother was an alien. Yeah, stupid huh! It’s a natural progression for any teenager to think this … that’s how I justify it now. In fact, I am certain that there have been numerous studies about such thoughts among teenagers toward their parents and, if there haven’t been, there should be. Some experts would call this phase I was going through normal. But I didn’t know that at the time. It’s like you had to experience the paranoia and live it for some time before someone says, “It’s okay, it’s normal for a kid of your age.” But if they did that with stuff like this, the counselors and other people in their world of expertise would be out of work. So I can understand them not telling us.
I think the alien thing is a progression from the Easter Bunny and Father Christmas. Stay with me on this. When we are kids, we’re taught to believe in mystical things and things we can’t see. Some families go to great lengths to perpetuate these myths and there’s sadness among parents and grandparents when their kids reach the conclusion that these things aren’t real. So the practice of believing in something unseen is established and needs feeding. Hence the alien thing happening in my head. I did take it a bit far, though. Beyond the age one normally would from what I understand now.
I hope you keep this to yourself, this and the other stuff I’ll tell you. I don’t want the stories to get around.
*****
Chapter Six
Mother is so, well, I don’t know. You heard what she’s like.
Anal, that’s what she is! Yeah, perfect description! We’d be having a conversation about one thing, and she picks up on something I say in passing and then find myself lost in quicksand for half an hour while I try and deal with her ever shifting focus on irrelevant detail. Trails leading to distant trails of irrelevance.
She says it’s the writer in her, following every interesting tidbit to the very end. I say it’s craziness. Her pursuit of irrelevant detail doesn’t make any sense. I think it’s because she’s fucked in the head. Oh, that sounds harsh. Maybe not fucked in the head but, a bit soft at the very least. You’d have to be soft to make up the whole Walter scenario.
Anyone who has read any of her Walter the Wombat books would be agreeing with me surely. Any thinking adult that is. That wombat has no logic to his thoughts. But then, the world loves her little irascible character. There’s a breakfast cereal named after him and a drink and an ice cream and a line of kids clothes and toys and a new TV series started this past fall. I guess her stories are not a good example of the state of her mind after all.
I started seriously thinking about her mental state when I realized that she wasn’t an alien; I was in my mid teens. When I was fifteen actually. I remember the day vividly. Up to then I’d put her craziness about things and scatty conversation, down to her being from another planet. Literally. I was certain.
Anyway she had gone to some hotel a couple of hours away in Chicago for a meeting with her editor who had flown in from New York to review the final draft of her first Walter the Wombat book. She left at eight in the morning and didn’t expect to be back until late in the evening. Before she left in the morning we had some crazy conversation that went nowhere which plunged my mind into the alien theory again. She seemed totally irrational at times and I couldn’t explain the differences between us any other way. That morning I committed myself to finding the alien connection.
As soon as she left the house I started searching. All over. Looking for a hidden place where I expected to find an answer. I mean, I didn’t really expect to find some high-powered transmitter connecting her with a far off planet. At least I don’t think I did. But I wouldn’t have been surprised if there was one there all the same. I wanted answers. I was looking for … something. I really thought there would be something. Some big secret. It was odd actually because it was like I was asleep and then woke to find myself searching frantically through the house. Like I don’t remember that much about starting the search or even thinking about it beforehand. My memory starts part of the way through the search, like I’d woken from a dream. Anyway, there I am searching in a frenzy. Sweating because I’m going so hard at it! Looking everywhere and finding nothing.
I climbed up into the roof, the cavity between the ceiling and the roof proper and found nothing. Next, I went down under the floorboards in the cavity there between the floor and the ground. I had to go outside the house to get into the cavity. There was a small door type of thing that I had to yank open and crawl through. I didn’t go too far because of how small the space was between the floor and the ground and I knew that if I couldn’t get through then she wouldn’t be able to. So nothing again.
Inside the house I went through each of the wardrobes and under the beds. All over the place. I looked everywhere. I pulled books out of the bookshelves one by one at first and checking to make sure that they weren’t hollow and containing some intergalactic device. I soon gave up that approach for grabbing several books at a time and quickly flicking the pages. I checked hundreds of books this way. Hundreds. Still nothing though. I pulled drawers out of the desk, looked under the seats of chairs and explored every nook and cranny. I looked under stacks of clothes and stacks of towels. I was especially thorough in my room because it seemed logical to me that if you wanted to hide something from someone you would put it in a place that was most obvious to them. Good logic huh?
It took me over an hour searching my bedroom because every so often I’d come across something I hadn’t seen for a long time and, well, I sat and reminisced about it. You know how that happens. I came across things like the half done crossword I found which, of course, I had to complete. It seemed much easier than three years earlier when I started it.
My room was stashed well with things like that. I’d start something and get bored after a time and put it aside. My mother used to speculate that I had some sort of attention disorder she heard about once on the radio years back. She was always complaining that I never seemed to finish anything I started. There was some truth in it, but it wasn’t a problem.
I liked my bedroom, it was a warm home to my thoughts and secret projects. I flourished there. I know I felt safe, whatever that meant to me back then. Who knows now? It was a feeling is all. Then and now.
The room itself was bigger than usual. With only two of us in this house I didn’t have any other family to argue with for the large bedroom. I painted it dark blue and brought in an old desk and a beanbag among other things. Furniture we could afford on our budget. After a few months of work on it I was done to the level I wanted. Mother, of course, thought that it was another unfinished project. I knew it was finished. Perfect for what I wanted. My own private cocoon. It’s another reason the search of the room took so long. I enjoyed it in there. But I didn’t find anything.
The only odd thing I found during the day of the search, well, I guess that it wasn’t that odd, it didn’t seem to be that odd, not then, but now that I think about it, in light of recent “events”, it was odd … was a small stack of letters. They were at the bottom of the underwear drawer in my mother’s dresser in her bedroom. No, I don’t have an underwear fetish and I’ve never tried her underwear on. I said the search was thorough. I went through all her drawers.
Okay, so I lied about trying on her underwear. I was only ten when I did that for god’s sake. Who doesn’t do it when they are ten? Only once, and even then only for a minute if that. And I left on my own underwear. I couldn’t do it naked, no way. That would be TOO weird. This time in her underwear drawer, when I was fifteen, the thought of trying anything on didn’t even cross my mind.
Anyway, at the bottom of this drawer, it was, let me see, the second drawer down, on the left side of the dresser, under her neat stack of underwear there was a small bundle of letters, six of them. They were held together by string. And the thing I remember now which was odd was the postmark on the top letter. It was from overseas and it was postmarked a year earlier. Huh, I didn’t take much notice of that when I found it, but now, well, now it takes on a new significance. I am sure they were letters from him.
After searching for another hour or so, the only thing I found of interest was a small shoebox. I found it by accident while searching in the hall cupboard, high on the top shelf. Up there with two towel and face washer sets that I’d never seen before. They looked brand new. And sheets too, there were sheets there too. I had never seen them either and they, too, looked brand new. It was like a secret stash. Pushed to the back of the shelf. You couldn’t see them if you were standing in front of the open cupboard and looked up. No, these were hidden towels and sheets. Odd that. Definitely hidden. On the left side and at the back of the top shelf of the hall cupboard, in the part, the cavity, behind the wall and not right in front of the door where most things in the cupboard are stored.
In the bathroom, the house had one bathroom and we both shared it, we alternated between two towel sets. A blue one and a green one. It was blue weeks one and three and green weeks two and four. Like clockwork. It had been that way for years. We always had two and always alternated week on, week off, week on, week off. Mother liked order in her life. Secretly, I did too. The sets we were using at the time were years old. Not dirty, just old and well used. So I don’t know why we didn’t use this nice champagne set. I mean, we had guest towels, separate to the blue and green set. Champagne would have been a nice diversion, a thirty three percent increase in towel capacity.
Anyway, to the side of the stack of the champagne towels was the shoebox I mentioned earlier. It was between the wall and the stack, toward the back, hidden to the eye. The box was about ten inches long, six inches deep and five inches high.
So, here I am, standing on my tiptoes on a chair I had dragged from the lounge room and checking behind the things on the shelf looking for a secret panel that would reveal the technology my mother was using to communicate with the aliens on the planet she was from. Remember, that was what this manic searching of the house was all about. And instead I found this shoebox. I lifted it out from its hiding place and removed the lid and found me. Well, lots of bits of me at least. Packed neatly.
I smiled at the photo of me as a baby. It was on top of everything else in the box.
I knew it was me because my name and date of birth was on the back along with the stamp from the hospital photographer. I was wearing a pale lemon baby dress type thing, a cape thing and booties, all of which were also in the box, folded neatly under the photo.
There was also a card from my crib with my name, weight, date and time of birth, doctor’s name and a print from my left foot. I made a mental note to myself to check the print one-day against my foot now, to be sure. Huh, never did though.
In this box there was also a small envelope with a handwritten note on the outside – “first haircut” – and inside, sure enough, was a lock of my hair, tied together with some wool. The hair was almost black even though now it is quite light in shade. There was a small notebook with measurements taken for the first couple of years and notes about other aspects of my development like when I started to crawl and walk and the first almost understandable word I uttered. It was sweet to find this meticulous chronicle of such things. Ah, memories. There was a silver spoon with my name and birth date and time engraved on it. And small envelope labeled “first nail clippings” dated almost fifteen years earlier and containing, you guessed it, tiny nail clippings. So tiny that they must have been hardly worth cutting. God, Mother and her obsessions.
I haven’t told you the most amazing thing though. It was the smell. I noticed it the moment I lifted the lid. Oh, it was so sweet. It was me. Me! WOW! When I was a baby. Caught in the jacket and booties and other relics from the time. I smelt what I smelt like to other people, fresh and innocent. It was a precious moment for me. Ahhh. After a few minutes the smell was gone so I poked my nose right into the box to try and catch a scent of me. I caught it and smiled again. Like I said, precious.
Past an assortment of rattles, a pacifier and an old band-aid in an envelope and labeled “first cut” - can you believe that my mother, any mother for that matter, would keep such a thing - there was one other thing in the box. Teeth. Yeah. My baby teeth. Four of them, scattered loose.
Everything in the box had been put there with some care, or so it seemed from the labels attached, except the teeth. Maybe that was a marker of a busying life or, less care. Maybe the novelty of the young baby had worn off by the time the teeth started falling out. I don’t know why but it annoyed me that the teeth weren’t better cared for. It’s as if I was neglected in some way.
I picked the teeth out of the box and held them in the palm of my hand. They were like pearls. The whole experience with the box was exciting. I know I was acting like a kid about it, thank god no one was around to see me. I put a tooth in my mouth, I wanted to feel whether it belonged. You know, in MY mouth. I swirled it around with my tongue, bit on it and played with it. It was weird. Only teeth feel like that. I kept that one tooth and put the rest in the box and then the box back where I found it. Stopped the stupid alien search after that. Didn’t seem to have a point.
Never told anyone about the shoebox. Until now.
I still have the tooth I took; it’s in my pocket. I should have put it back in the shoebox. I wish Mother had never kept them.
But then, well, I’m here.
Those fucking teeth. I’ll remember them every day.
God I hate feeling like this and what it does to me.
Fuck.
*****
Chapter Seven
I was on a date with Diane Watson, my girlfriend. Yesterday afternoon, Saturday. We’ve been dating for over five months so this isn’t an early date, you know, where you’re unsure of the person you’re going out with or anything.
I met Diane through mutual friends a couple of years ago. We started mixing in the same crowds. I’d run into her in bars, parties, you know. I liked the slow and natural way the friendship developed. From when I first met her we would have seen each other maybe once a week until we started dating. Just so you know.
I knew her well. What we had was comfortable. I know it makes her sound like an old bit of furniture, but it best describes how it was. I do, did, feel comfortable with her, in her company. I can’t speak for her except to say that I sensed a comfort from her toward me and our developing thing.
Having Diane in my life made me feel good.
Today, with Diane, wasn’t a date as such. I’d called her and set it up because I wanted to talk about last night and my real father. I hadn’t spoken to anyone since he came around except Mother. It’s not something I could or would discuss with my friends. Diane was the only person I could talk about it with. I wanted to know what she thought. We were going to dinner and a movie that night but I couldn’t wait so I called and set lunch up.
We met at the café we went to the most. It was in the town where Diane and I went to university and not that far from where each of us lived. There were other cafes and pubs in town but this was by far our favorite. This place wasn’t hip but it was a popular student hangout. It was kind of out of date décor wise, locked in the seventies. But the food was exceptional. Tasty and cheap. And the music was current and eclectic. I guess we liked it more than any other place because it felt comfortable. I liked it a lot.
We’d been sitting at our table, our usual table, for fifteen minutes or so talking about nothing in particular when our food came. When I say “nothing in particular”, I really mean that we weren’t talking about what I was there to talk about. Instead we talked about general things and made plans to catch up with friends for dinner during the week. I liked talking with Diane.
Anyway, the food … Diane and I both liked burgers on the weekend. It was something we discovered in common even before we started dating. Weekends were for comfort food. Thick and juicy cheeseburgers. Fries. Cheesecake. She liked her burgers medium and I was a well done guy. You never can tell with burger patty meat.
We started eating our burgers. I feigned pain in my mouth as I swallowed what I had bitten off with my first bite. I spat out the baby tooth I had retrieved from the shoebox which I had found at my mother’s place years earlier.
Diane believed my act that a tooth had fallen out. She put her burger down before she’d taken a bite and was instantly concerned for me. It was so sweet. “Oh my god, honey, are you okay? What happened? You broke a tooth? Oh my God. Are you okay? Does it hurt?” Staccato questions without an opportunity to answer. Pure Diane. It’s an endearing quality. She reached across and rubbed my arm and then brushed her hand against my face. I loved the way she cared. Ah, Diane, it was all I could do to stop myself laughing.
I soaked up the sympathy as I held the side of my face and grimaced in pain. The moment was sweet, me in pain, albeit faked, and her full of comfort and concern. It ended when she realized the tooth I spat out was a baby tooth.
I’m not sure why she looked away from me and at the tooth. I don’t think I gave it away, but who knows. It was obviously a baby tooth. No doubt at all.
“This didn’t just break off!” Diane said pointing to the tooth.
“No, I …”
“It’s a baby tooth.”
“Yes, I …”
“You set me up.”
“Diane it was a bit of fun. At least I thought it would be. Thanks for the sympathy anyway. It was sweet. It’s one of my baby teeth. I carry it all the time.” I told her about how I found it a couple of years back and how I felt when I first opened the shoebox. She seemed to like the story. Anyway, after the story, I put the tooth back into my mouth and tried to work out where it would have been positioned. I held it in place with my tongue and smiled at Diane. Look at me! Funny joke huh? I shrugged my shoulders and tensed my neck how you do when you want to let someone know that what you’ve done is funny.
I need to tell you that right at this point, right at this moment, I was feeling pretty good. I was confident that this was fun and that it way okay. You know, okay, between Diane and I. I wasn’t worried at all. I was playing around because I thought I could, you know.
She flipped. Literally. Quietly though. It all happened in the look on her face, here eyes really. I reacted by revealing the tooth in my mouth for a third time, thinking she’d missed the joke. She continued to attack me with the stare; you know the one … where you can feel the pain being inflicted by the daggers. Ouch! Diane!
She slowly stood up. Almost tentatively, as if she wasn’t sure how to react. She stood in her place and glanced around the café. Next, she tapped the freshly manicured and polished nail of the middle finger on her right hand on the Formica tabletop while she rolled her eyes. I could see she was thinking. I straightened up in my seat and realized that I still had my cheeseburger in my hand so I put it back on the plate.
Funny, my heart rate was increasing. I could feel it. Reacting to every reaction from Diane. I tried to relax but the heart rate stayed up there. I had to find a way to fix things so I decided to apologise. “Diane” I said, which was a mistake. A big mistake because I had momentarily forgotten that I had the baby tooth in my mouth, between my upper lip and my two front teeth. When I said her name the tooth fell, no, it didn’t fall, it more like shot out of my mouth like from a gun. It hit the table top.
Oops. Didn’t mean for that to happen. Seriously.
It was an accident. I forgot it was there.
I lifted my eyes from the tooth and looked up at her and did the international sign of ‘oops’, shrugging my shoulders, raising my eyebrows and raising my hands openly. I kicked the gesture up with a look of sorry across my face too. I don’t think she understood the meaning of the gesture though. Her stare was intense. So I added a contraction of my face as if to say who would have expected that. Huh!? My gestures were part question part apology part acknowledgement of a ‘go figure’ moment.
Diane didn’t get it.
I looked back at the tooth, and smiled. Unintentionally, mind you. I thought it was funny. The whole thing that had happened. It was! Silly, yes. But funny. And now this reaction. All from a tiny baby tooth. So I smiled with some irony at how it had gone. Not a big smile, but warm and genuine.
The fingernail tapping on the Formica table top started again but faster this time. Tap tap tap tap. It was joined by a sigh that was clearly exasperation and then a grunt. Okay so she was annoyed. My tooth was on her plate in a public place and I guess I can understand her being a bit pissed at that. It’s not as if Diane and I have been chaste in our relationship. She’s tasted where the tooth came from, and more I should say. So what’s the problem? I don’t see it.
I like to understand, clearly, what I am being told. The tapping and grunt were open to interpretation. Okay, there was the look on the face to go with it. But that, too, could have been more mock horror at the humor of the moment. Diane can fake things. No I couldn’t be one hundred percent sure. At least I could convince myself that I was not sure. I liked words better because, usually, there was no doubt about what was being communicated. But this tap tap, sigh and grunt cycle of hers meant nothing. Diane knew it. I’m sure she knew it. It was too vague. I think she was trying to piss me off. But maybe she didn’t have any other response she could give me. Who knows? All I know is that the tapping is wasting time. The food is getting cold. I was hungry.
CAN’T WE JUST GET THE MEAL DONE AND THEN YOU TELL ME OFF? I picked up my burger at this point and motioned for her to sit and do the same thing. I didn’t want to say anything because I thought it might draw attention to our situation. My thoughts were screaming at her but she couldn’t hear me, of course. Ugh. I put my burger down without taking a bite. Come on Diane.
Waiting. Waiting.
In the moment of waiting I made a mental note to myself to talk with Diane about her tapping. There are some things you shouldn’t do when you’ve been going out with the same person for five months and you’ve been to some family things together. She owed me more respect than the tapping showed. I should say something but I wouldn’t because I was a pussy about things like that. No, not a pussy, I let things slide that others get in a knot over. I never seemed to have the ability to vent audibly what I vented internally. Usually, making the mental note and venting to myself is satisfaction enough. Look, it works for me.
Can you believe that? Making a mental note about something which has really annoyed you is satisfaction enough. It’s pathetic. I sound so weak. But I better not go down that road right now because I’ll only get more pissed at myself.
Fuck I’ve got to snap out of this.
*****
Chapter Eight
Daydream over. I can hear Diane’s tapping again. It probably never stopped. Argh mental notes.
Stop the fucking tapping would you?
There, I said it. Stop the fucking tapping with your fucking manicured long fingernail of the middle finger on your right hand. Loud and clear.
By staring at her and jutting my jaw and narrowing my eyes. I didn’t need to verbalize the feeling. The look was enough. Surely.
Another look and I’ll wait for the response. She knows what I am saying.
I could tell from the way she shifted her weight between her feet and sighed, she was ready to respond. I’m not saying she’s a big girl by that. No, Diane’s quite slender. Above average height and slim in build. She was moving to respond, that’s all.
Another few taps and a grunt ... then Diane smoothly reached across the table and with both hands picked up my plate of cheeseburger, salad and fries and tipped the contents into my lap and returned the plate to the table. “You’re a freak” she said as she tipped my meal into my lap. Shit Diane!
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